It 2017’s Pennywise has been reimagined as a robot in terrifying new AI art. The character, a shape-shifting evil entity that lurks in the sewers and preys on the fears of the townspeople of Derry, Maine, originated in the 1986 Stephen King novel of the same name. After being played by Tim Curry in a two-part 1990 miniseries adaptation of It, the character – whose most common incarnation is the clown Pennywise – was brought to life once more by Bill Skarsgård in the 2017 It Chapter One and its 2019 sequel.
On Instagram, user Liam Crowle posted an AI art design that imagines It‘s Pennywise as a mechanical menace.
The image gives Skarsgård’s Pennywise a sharper and more metallic outfit as well as glowing red eyes. Per Crowle’s caption, the AI-generated piece is part of an exploration of “the intersection of technology and creativity,” using its AI origin to further highlight its uncanny nature.
Pennywise Could Be a Robot If It Wanted To
One of the creepiest elements of the character of Pennywise is how it can change its shape at will to best torment whoever its current victim is. For instance, it becomes a leper when chasing the hypochondriac Eddie Kaspbrak, and over the course of the story, becomes a werewolf, a mummy, a crawling eyeball, and even the deceased child Georgie Denborough. Pennywise is its most common form because of how creepy the average child finds clowns, but there is an infinite variety of terrifying forms it can take on.
This means that Pennywise does in fact have the ability to look exactly like this robotic AI image if it chooses to. So far, however, the character has not embodied this kind of mechanical being in any version of the story. Typically, its forms are more organic, the better to be realistic and disgusting.
A robot Pennywise is not entirely out of the question in the future, though. The It franchise will be continuing with the upcoming Max prequel series Welcome to Derry. While the bulk of that series is likely set in a time period before The Terminator, which appears to be the biggest inspiration for this image, not much is known about the plot, so a robotic Pennywise is entirely possible.
Source: @graphica.visions/Instagram
